Patient Policies

To be able to work together in a partnership with our patients, we need to stay thoroughly informed about changes in your health, and evaluate those changes as they occur. If changes in treatment are necessary they may require a telephone or office appointment to address. The key issue is that important issues do not go unaddressed until some future office visit.

Please let us know promptly if:

You experience any sudden change in your health that you feel is related to the care we are providing,

You have any adverse reaction to a medication or nutritional supplement,

You feel as though you need for any reason to change your medications, medication schedule, or stop a medication,

You are prescribed medications by other physicians (so we can guard against drug interactions), or

You are unable to have lab work done on schedule. Incomplete lab work is never a reason to miss an appointment.

Our staff strives to bring all of your questions and requests promptly to your doctor's attention. Many questions you have about your care can be answered with a quick check by our nurse with your doctor and a nurse call back. Concerns about changes in your health, new or different symptoms or thoughts you may have forgotten to discuss require more time to consider. To avoid multiple calls and phone tag, please make a written note for yourself before you call. This will help you to be succinct and thorough in your message.

We see patients in Rockville, MD Monday-Thursday between 8:15 am to 5 pm, with the last appointment of the day usually beginning between 4 - 4:15 pm. We see patients in Charlottesville, VA on Friday between 9 am and 5 pm and Saturday between 9 am and 1 pm twice a month.

OHP receives more than 2,500 phone calls each month. During normal business hours (9am-5pm, Mon-Thur; 9am-1pm Fri), all calls to our main number 301.330.9430 are answered by a team of telephone receptionists whose responsibility is to direct calls in the most efficient manner. Our receptionists' job is to ascertain the nature of callers' needs and either pass calls to the most appropriate administrative or professional staff, or ask callers to leave messages in one of our voicemail locations. During non-working hours all calls are routed to a voice message system that allows callers to leave detailed messages in voicemail boxes specific to their needs.

Our voicemail center includes specific locations for clinical, testing, prescription, and administrative messages. Each voicemail location includes instructions regarding the specific information that callers must include for efficient processing of requests.

OHP staff monitors the voicemail center, summarizes message content, and gathers related medical charts and documents needed for appropriate action and follow-up response. Even a seemingly simple inquiry requires significant staff coordination to ensure timely, accurate responses. Because physicians' time is at such a premium, staff prepare physician messages for review at scheduled times. Some questions can be answered with a quick look at a chart; others require the physician to pull together myriad sources of information and consider multiple responses including phone consultations or office visits to provide in-depth discussions. To expedite any message and avoid "telephone tag," please:

Leave complete, detailed messages following the instructions you will hear introducing the voicemail location; especially phone number(s) and times when you can be reached.

Do not leave multiple messages on the same topic or in different mailboxes - this triggers multiple processes and potentially delays responses while several staff members are working on similar, overlapping messages.

Allow adequate time for OHP response - non-urgent requests or questions may require several days for a response.

There are times when the demand on our schedules means that appointments may not be available less than a month in advance. We do everything we can to fill openings as they occur with patients on our waiting list in sequential order. All patients need to make every effort to schedule their next visit(s) at the end of each office visit or telephone evaluation/management call.

Cancellations

If you find cancelling or rescheduling an office visit unavoidable, you must let our office know more than three business days in advance. This is the only way we are able to notify patients on our waiting list that an opening has become available. The charge for cancelling or rescheduling an appointment within the three-day period is $150 for an established patient. New patient appointment cancellations are charged the full amount of the initial visit if we do not receive at least 5 business days' notice.

This charge must be paid immediately for a cancelled appointment, or prior to being seen at a rescheduled appointment. This fee is due immediately for a missed appointment. Consideration is always given to emergencies and life’s disruptions. Patients who repeatedly change or miss appointments, however, will be discharged from the practice on the basis on non-compliance.

To make the most of every office visit or phone consultation,please send us a current Patient Health Update Form at least 3 business days prior to your appointment.

Every morning prior to seeing patients our physicians review the chart of each patient scheduled for that day. It is extremely helpful in their preparation for your visit to have up-to-date information from you on any changes in your health to review at that time. This process saves significant time during your visit and allows the physicians to share their thinking about your care prior to each visit.

Please take a Health Update Form with you after each visit or login to the Patient Information Section of our website at www.ohpmd.com to print or download a copy:

Go to www.ohpmd.com and click on the tab for New Patient Information

Click on Patient Health Update, print and fill out the form

Fax or Mail Form to OHP

You may choose to scan and email the form to us at messages@ohpmd.com, but keep in mind that email is not a secure form of communication for private information.

Adherence to medication schedules and dosages is absolutely essential for adequate treatment and on-going measurement of your responses to treatment. Whenever a person starts a new prescription or changes dosages, it is important to be alert for any changes in efficacy and, especially, allergic reactions or drug/drug interactions.

This is the reason OHP must have a comprehensive list of ALL your current medications from ALL of your providers. Forms for your convenience in tracking and reporting your medications are available in our office and on our Internet site.

Working With Your Pharmacy

Medical practices and pharmacies are under tremendous pressure to reduce costs. In nearly all interactions today, pharmacists are constrained by the rules of your insurance carrier. This has shifted a huge burden onto patients and providers who need flexibility in treating disease.

An up-to-date list of all medicines you take, the accurate brand and generic names and dosage of each drug, who prescribed them, and when

For each drug, the number of refills, anticipated refill dates, and dates when the prescription must be renewed

Copies of all prescriptions, receipts and correspondence with insurance carriers and your physicians

New Prescriptions

In most cases, we electronically transmit your prescriptions to the pharmacy of your choice during, or immediately after your appointment. If you or your pharmacy calls in a prescription refill request, please allow 24 hours for us to review, approve, and transmit that refill to your pharmacy.

or requests for a physician explanation or justification for the prescription (both of which are rapidly increasing in frequency), please let us know immediately. Remember, however, that:

We may prescribe medications for you that are not included in your health plan’s “formulary” or are not recognized by insurance plans for your condition(s) or in the dosage and duration of treatment we prescribe.

OHP is not responsible for obtaining agreement with your carrier for coverage. This is specifically why we have “opted-out” of Medicare and insurance plan participation.

We will, however, gather any information requested by your plan(s) and provide such to you directly to support claims for coverage that you are submitting or resubmitting.

Prescription Refills

The number of refills allowed is set at the time of the initial prescription, and should not require any action by OHP to obtain from your pharmacy. If you call OHP for a simple refill, it just delays the process.

Prescription Renewals

OHP will NOT renew a prescription after the allocated refills have been used without an office visit to reassess your health and necessity for continuation/change of the medication

If you are running out of a prescription because you have delayed in setting up an office visit or there are some extenuating circumstances that dictate increasing your supply of a medication, you still must allow at least two days for OHP to process the prescription.

Finally, a temporary supply (usually 30 days) of a prescription will only be provided one time; an office visit is required for complete renewal.

Prescription Requests

None of the doctors are available on Friday for prescription requests. Please monitor your prescriptions and have your pharmacy send us a refill authorization at least 5 days before your supply is finished. This will give doctors and staff adequate time to process them. Any prescription request received on Friday will not be processed until the following week.

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